Landmine Marathon announced that lead vocalist Grace Perry has parted ways with Landmine Marathon in order to embark on non-musical pursuits. The band has already announced her replacement in Krysta Martinez, the lead vocalist of Portand-based band Transient.

Goomba Music has obtained the rights to Nile's Worship The Animal (1994 - The Lost Recordings) which contains thirty five minutes of unreleased music. It will be released worldwide on October 11, 2011.

Worship The Animal features the original line-up that recorded the Nile albums, Amongst the Catacombs of Nephren-Ka and Black Seeds of Vengeance (being Karl Sanders on guitars/ vocals, Chief Spires on bass/vocals and Pete Hammoura on drums/vocals). It contains pre Amongst the Catacombs of Nephren-Ka recorded material.

Worship the Animal (1994 - The Lost Recordings) will be available for digitally and as a collector's edition Digipak.

Malefic, frontman of black metal band Xasthur, announced that Portal of Sorrow is the title of the eighth album. This album will also be the last album that is released under the Xasthur moniker. The Xasthur blog reads:

"This album, Portal of Sorrow, is the last Xasthur album, period. The honorable thing to do is to end the band and not hang around too long, like so many metal/black metal bands do. Enough is enough, right?

I'm not able to make it work anymore. I don't want to turn into one of those bands who rely on too many guests and session musicians to make people interested in their music again. Some help is fine but more than some help is very cheap and it becomes others, not the roots of the band that makes the difference and the music work. I don't want to fall into that pattern. The motivation and inspiration used to be there full time and now it's not there at all, not for doing Xasthur at least. It is a roll or persona that I have simply outgrown. I've been saying I'm sick and tired of it all for too long... and now, I'm going to back it up. There are or have been literally 18,000 black metal bands; it does not matter if there's one less.

French progressive symphonic metallers Adagio have reported that Christian Palin, vocalist since 2008, has departed from their line-up. Guitarist Stéphan Forté reports: "We have had no other choice but to separate from Christian Palin this morning (Saturday Feb. 13). That is a decision we needed to take as soon as possible for the best of Adagio. We have no hard feelings towards him and wish him all the best for the future. More news very soon..."

Austria's Dornenreich have announced first details concerning their upcoming seventh studio album. The album will be titled Flammentriebe and the band will have recording sessions starting in July 2010.

The official wordt from Dornenreich: "Both the intense rehearsals and the compositional results of the last months are very encouraging - and we will enter the studio in July 2010 to record the new album Flammentriebe. Expect a varied, haunting and very dramatic album!"

Floor Jansen, lead vocalist of the now-defunct band After Forever, has announced the through her myspace page that she has started a new metal band. Due to her new commitment in this band, her project with Jorn Viggo (Pagan's Mind), Sinh, has been put on hold to give the new metalband full priority. The information of the line-up and name of Floor's new metal project has yet to be released.

The complete message reads as follows: "It's been a bumpy year so far and I would like to update you a little. Unfortunately my band After Forever stopped and that meant the start of a new period. Looking back I realize how many great and amazing things I got to do and that inspires me to go full speed ahead with new music. Hereby an update about what I do today and what my plans for the future are:

Norwegian doomsters Funeral have set 22 September as the release date for their upcoming album entitled "As The Light Does The Shadow" cover] to be released via Indie Recordings. Track No. 5 entitled "In The Fathoms Of Wit And Reason" features Robert Lowe (Candlemass, Solitude Aeturnus) on vocals.

Album tracklist:

01. The Will To Die
02. Those Fated To Fall
03. The Strength To End It
04. The Elusive Light
05. In The Fathoms Of Wit And Reason
06. Towards The End
07. Let Us Die Alone
08. The Absence Of Heaven
09. Hunger
10. Fallen One

The French progressive neo-classical metal band Adagio announced on May 11 that the bass, guitars, drums, and vocals for their upcoming album "Archangels in Black" have been recorded. They promised that Kevin Codfert would record his keyboard and piano parts the following week. The name of the European Label that Archangels in Black will be released through will be announced in the upcoming weeks and a French Headline Tour is already in talks for November 2008.
Before this tour, some gigs have already been confirmed: